CENDARI

CERL is involved in the CENDARI project. Collaborative EuropeaN Digital/Archival Infrastructure (CENDARI) is a four-year project which began in February 2012. Coordinated by Trinity College Dublin, it is funded under the FP7 programme of the European Commission.

CENDARI seeks to integrate digital
archives and resources for research on medieval and modern European history. Through the development
of a so-called ‘enquiry environment’ these selected resources – including those from hitherto isolated
archives and data silos – will be made available to researchers of medieval Europe and the First World
War period.

The fourteen partners in CENDARI,
which include CERL, The European
Library and Manuscriptorium, are from a
range of countries and institutions across
Europe. We will be working together to
investigate both available archive and
library resources and the needs of
researchers. The Freie Universität Berlin
(for the Great War) and Manuscriptorium
(for medieval materials) have begun leading
the investigation into libraries and archives
with suitable content.

CERL will organise three summer schools
and five one-day training events from 2013-
15, which will engage the researcher with the newly aggregated resources, and tools and services
developed. Initial contact with medieval and First World War researchers will be made early on in the
project, including via the annual International Medieval Conference in Leeds in 2013
(http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/). The University of Birmingham will lead the work in the first part of
the project which establishes users’ training needs. The researchers will then come together in the
CENDARI summer schools and seminars to test the tools which will have been developed according to
those needs.

Since CERL’s colleagues in The European Library are also working on this project, and as we are both
based in the National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague, the CENDARI project is often discussed
and tasks are undertaken collaboratively.